As posted earler, one can copy a LP to a CD and the CD will sound like a LP with all the added sound. But one can not make an LP sound like a CD.

If one likes that added sould of an LP, fine, I for one don't.

Paul

Paul, As I stated above, I think most of my preference is due to the lack of compression being applied since I find certain new CDs preferable to certain new vinyl when I feel the mastering has squashed the sound. Likewise, I've heard some 24 / 96 downloads that theoretically should sound great but sound lousy to me. I can't say I agree or disagree with your assertion, but I would disagree that a person likes vinyl only due to added coloration. I do think I like the added coloration but given the choice I would probably go with the CD over vinyl if the dynamics have not been crushed.

If the dynamics are equivalent (same mastering essentially) then my gut feeling is that I like the vinyl better due to LESS sound in the high frequency range and maybe MORE sound in the bass and midrange which I suppose is harmonic.

I'm ripping Siamese Dream vinyl from Smashing Pumpkins today, it will be interesting to see how this measures since the original CD was really, really good. I'm a little suspicious that the new vinyl may be squashed and I probably will not prefer it. Should be an interesting one to compare.

Again, I'm not trying to argue, just trying to give perspective. For me, the remastering trend eventually sent me running back to vinyl as I tried to understand why I no longer liked the CDs I was buying --- keep in mind, I own many thousands of CDs over a long period of time. For a long time, I really loved my CDs.

Paul, tonight I'm ripping the original vinyl Siouxsie & The Banshees "Tinderbox" -- Pure Music measures "dynamic range" for "Party's Fall" at 24dB (dynamic range here is defined as peak to LEQ ratio) -- I loaded up my remastered CD I bought last year and it measure 14dB on the same song!

I know you probably are aware of this whole loudness war thing, but I'm not sure folks appreciate that guys like me have run screaming back to our vinyl for this exact reason. That's some massive compression on the remaster -- that's more than a 40% reduction right? It's a lot more "sound" probably due to multi-band compression which seems prevalent in mastering in the last five years or so (I'm guessing here, I'm not sure when this gem of modern technology was bestowed upon us).

I do my own mastering in my studio and compression has some damaging effects. Again, I apologize if this is obvious to everyone. I just don't think the "colorization" of vinyl is the main point for some people such as me who think our old vinyl smokes these new remasters. This one is atrocious! Maybe its useful for me to take down some of my other samples and load up a comparison of "Party's Fall" original vinyl to the new remaster? Let me know if anyone is interested.

Does anyone have "Tinderbox", do you measure what I measure. Holy smokes.

The differences Cliveb highlighted indicate that he could easily ABX the samples so there doesn't seem to be the need to ask him to do so. And his opinions were based on careful listening to the samples under discussion rather than a test signal

Just to clarify. Botface's comment could be interpreted as meaning that I was able to ABX the 24 and 16 bit samples uploaded by Gretschguy. This is NOT the case. I was unable to ABX the 24 and 16 versions of the clips that Gretschguy uploaded. Posting a log would be pointless.

What I *did* report was that I could easily discern the diference between Gretschguy's vinyl rips and my CD versions. I could post logs, but they would just show 100% success. In any case, being able to ABX a vinyl rip against a CD (which could well have been produced from a different master) is hardly surprising.

I will check out my CDs made in the 90s, they probably sound awesome on my system and I've largely ignored them after having become so frustrated with CDs.

There is a vanishingly small window during the late 80s when rock/pop CDs were routinely well made. In the very early days, they were often produced from Nth generation copy tapes, and once we got into the 90s the dynamic compression excesses started. The Led Zeppelin set remastered by Jimmy Page and George Marino in 1991 is probably the earliest example I can think of where rot had begun to set in.

I will check out my CDs made in the 90s, they probably sound awesome on my system and I've largely ignored them after having become so frustrated with CDs.

There is a vanishingly small window during the late 80s when rock/pop CDs were routinely well made. In the very early days, they were often produced from Nth generation copy tapes, and once we got into the 90s the dynamic compression excesses started. The Led Zeppelin set remastered by Jimmy Page and George Marino in 1991 is probably the earliest example I can think of where rot had begun to set in.

You are right, there was a lot of poor cds released in the 80s from production copies of master tapes, which often had a bit of equalisation to compensate for the vinyl cutting process. A couple of Genesis albums definitely. I even had one cd which had the analogue transfer dolby decoded when there was no dolby encoding. It was similar in the world of analogue when discs were often transferred to tape to send off to far flung countries as master tapes for cutting to vinyl again.Many modern cds sound bad because of the poor recording techniques, no longer are experienced studio engineers working in calibrated acoustic control rooms, instead we have talented musicians using fairly good speakers in a spare room and the quality of sound just isn't there to start with. Listen to "Back to Black", which has a fairly thin sound and a mix that sounds like the faders were all set at zero and left for the duration, yet it's retro music that's been done superbly in they days of analogue. It's not the technology sometimes, but the way of recording which doesn't need as much care or expertise to sound half good.My preference is for SACD, there's some wonderful Stones albums done and Little Red Rooster sounds like great analogue.

Is it only me or do others think this thread is getting pointless? Gretschguy repeats over and over how good his vinyl sounds. To me a rip can have some fancy audiophile dB value above 50 and even when i only hear one vinyl artifact i´m done with it.The claim 24bit is better as 16bit he never proved. I have the feeling he simply says to himself we wackos here have no Burmester so what do we know.Doe sthis thread still have any value?

I wondered myself if this was at once a good thread that got hijacked, but after reading the first post again I don't think so. It's fine for people to explain why they like vinyl. It does not mean that this thread needs to go on and on comparing vinyl to CD on a title by title, pressing by pressing basis. It is definitely not a repository for comments about personal digital transcriptions of vinyl. In fact I'm pretty certain that we already have at least one dedicated discussion for that.

For those of you who haven't already, please read the article that is the topic of this discussion before posting.

Ok, sorry if i sounded to pinheaded but you are right. The only thing that made me interested here was the 24bit claim, since this came out to be a false alarm let everyone keep his feelings float in here, why not.

Is it only me or do others think this thread is getting pointless? Gretschguy repeats over and over how good his vinyl sounds. To me a rip can have some fancy audiophile dB value above 50 and even when i only hear one vinyl artifact i´m done with it.The claim 24bit is better as 16bit he never proved. I have the feeling he simply says to himself we wackos here have no Burmester so what do we know.Doe sthis thread still have any value?

Wombat, not at all -- apologies if I came off arrogant, I was originally a bit miffed that folks dissed vinyl so strongly when I feel there are very compelling reasons to listen to vinyl, especially vintage vinyl which was the original medium of the work product. And I also wanted to express that it's not just the extra stuff too, I think its actually a different overall presentation with (excuse me) more air and deep bottoms and less weight in the upper high frequencies -- a different tonal balance typically that I prefer.

I did not mean to hijack this thread or cause a stir, the topic seemed subjective to me -- heck even hipsters were dragged into it -- but then it got really technical with sine waves and stuff and I thought, oh no, I've landed in an odd place. I just wanted to give my perspective on why I like vinyl and I really don't think it is JUST coloration. It has a lot to do with remastering and my feeling that only over a short period of time do CDs, to my ears, sound very good on a practical level. Since I love the music of the 70s and 80s its almost entirely true for me that the vinyl sounds better.

I constructed an AB test of my 16 bit versus 24 bit Dire Straits sample, on my system I scored 65% hit rate of identifying the correct sample (24 or 16) over 20 samples. I'm not sure if that is a valid AB blind test or not, I had a friend arrange the samples into a group of 10 (5 each) and rename them so I would have no idea which sample was which. This might have actually been harder than an AB test since I had him arrange them in a random order.

65% is lower than I had honestly expected I would score. To identify the samples I felt I heard some deep lows on the bass drum and some additional clarity on the vocals.

I then did an EQ match on the two samples using my Logic Pro system and I found that the 16 bit sample has a noticeable missing hump of bottom with a max diff around 5dB near say 35Hz and the 16 bit sample has a bump of about 1dB to 2dB around 1k. If I'm generous with my hearing, I'd say that I may be picking up on some lack of definition around the vocal at around 1k -- let's call it blurring or smearing. The kick drum also sounded a little different to me and, again, if I'm generous about it perhaps I'm hearing that difference at 35Hz.

Those tonal differences could no doubt have to do with the dithering, I have no idea. Maybe someone can technically compare the two samples and give us some insight.

I'm not an audio engineer, I just play one on TV, so maybe using Logic Pro's EQ Match is an off the rocker idea -- I don't know -- I wanted to look at whether tonally they lined up exactly and they did not.

I then did an EQ match on the two samples using my Logic Pro system and I found that the 16 bit sample has a noticeable missing hump of bottom with a max diff around 5dB near say 35Hz and the 16 bit sample has a bump of about 1dB to 2dB around 1k. If I'm generous with my hearing, I'd say that I may be picking up on some lack of definition around the vocal at around 1k -- let's call it blurring or smearing. The kick drum also sounded a little different to me and, again, if I'm generous about it perhaps I'm hearing that difference at 35Hz.

Those tonal differences could no doubt have to do with the dithering, I have no idea. Maybe someone can technically compare the two samples and give us some insight.

I downloaded your "Romeo And Juliet" samples and (according to Adobe Audition 3.0 frequency analysis) there are no differences in their spectral characteristics.

65% is lower than I had honestly expected I would score. To identify the samples I felt I heard some deep lows on the bass drum and some additional clarity on the vocals.

I then did an EQ match on the two samples using my Logic Pro system and I found that the 16 bit sample has a noticeable missing hump of bottom with a max diff around 5dB near say 35Hz and the 16 bit sample has a bump of about 1dB to 2dB around 1k. If I'm generous with my hearing, I'd say that I may be picking up on some lack of definition around the vocal at around 1k -- let's call it blurring or smearing. The kick drum also sounded a little different to me and, again, if I'm generous about it perhaps I'm hearing that difference at 35Hz.

Those tonal differences could no doubt have to do with the dithering, I have no idea. Maybe someone can technically compare the two samples and give us some insight.

65% means nothing. These tonal differences you describe can´t be related to different bitrates or any dither. Either your playback chain has some serious problems or your expection bias is just unexpected high that you even can imgine different tonality with up to 5dB added. Never heard anyone descriping the differences with 5dB loss in bass and added content around 1kHz. This isn´t how things work.

I was originally a bit miffed that folks dissed vinyl so strongly when I feel there are very compelling reasons to listen to vinyl, especially vintage vinyl which was the original medium of the work product. And I also wanted to express that it's not just the extra stuff too, I think its actually a different overall presentation with (excuse me) more air and deep bottoms and less weight in the upper high frequencies -- a different tonal balance typically that I prefer.

Given that all these advantages can be accurately reproduced in your 24/96 copy (and, IMO, in your 16/44.1 copy), that's a compelling reason to download needle drops, not to buy vinyl. Digital itself is just fine. In some cases modern releases are compressed to death, in others they're sourced from less worn/aged master tapes, but in others it's just vinyl distortion that makes it sound "better" to you. In all these cases, it'll sound just as wonderful on a digital copy.

Thanks David, I like my own needle drops -- it's a hobby per se, I want to fine tune the sound with a cartridge that I like not some random setup. The Delos for example is considered to be detailed and dynamic relative to other more lush cartridges.

Its time consuming no doubt, but it's legal and it's fun actually (for me at least).

Good point on the artists, but I do subscribe to Spotify and I buy a lot of new music on vinyl, HD Tracks, and sometimes CD. I own a zillion different copies of Who's Next on vinyl, CD, etc.. -- they, for example, have my pound of flesh!

So for several reasons I would not download needle drops nor would I upload my own.

Is it only me or do others think this thread is getting pointless? .............................................................I will try to post the EQ Match from Logic Pro.

GG

Long story short, copy it to a CD and it will sound the same.

Paul

Paul, I'm happy to be done with it. I'm going to stick with 24/96 since my Burl does 24 not 16 which avoids me dithering as an additional step and I have no idea what the future holds on this subject, smarter people than I line up on both sides, I just don't want to re rip a 1000 CDs if we do find some use or content in those bits. I hope I didn't violate the TOS there, I honestly am not convinced either way at this point, but I'd like to error on the side of ripping too much data than too little just in case since data is cheap but my time ripping is not.

On the specific EQ diff that I see, I wonder if I have a 44.1 versus 48 problem there? Does anyone know if that diff in EQ would be subtle or really obvious? Again, this is not important really, but I'm curious why I see it.

What I find much more interesting is to look at some EQ curves (20 to 20) and see the diffs between modern CDs and vintage vinyl. I see some really interesting things anecdotally that I think help map to this preference that people have which is where this thread started as I understood it but then maybe i inadvertently took it into a theoretical discussion. From some spot checking I see the modem CDs have less EQ on the extremes and much more weight around 1k zone. That may explain some of the fatigue with modern CDs for guys like me. When I applied the vinyl adjustment to some tracks I was able to turn them up louder and enjoy them more.

The rule is also specific about the use of subjective language to communicate differences. Terms like 3D, openness, air and weight are not welcome. I'm reading about how this is becoming a theoretical discussion, yet there is no theoretical basis for differences in low frequency content, nor differences at 1kHz. It reads like more pseudoscientific nonsense.

Regarding dither as an additional step, has anyone adequately demonstrated that the lower 9 bits of a normalized 24 bit digitization of vinyl are comprised of something other than noise? IOW I don't see much of a case demonstrating that dithering is even necessary when preparing vinyl for a 16-bit delivery format.

Regarding dither as an additional step, has anyone adequately demonstrated that the lower 9 bits of a normalized 24 bit digitization of vinyl are comprised of something other than noise? IOW I don't see much of a case demonstrating that dithering is even necessary when preparing vinyl for a 16-bit delivery format.

I also have several different copies of certain favourite albums - sometimes because finding a decent version is so elusive. One is enough if it sounds great. Five isn't enough if they're all flawed. Strange though that the most incompetent / couldn't-care-less record companies get to make the most money out of this racket.

As for 24/96 vs 16/44.1, you're not doing any harm using the former (assuming storage is inconsequently cheap) - with a ADC and/or DAC that doesn't support 44.1kHz, you're probably doing some good.

Only problem is, you can't come on HA and claim vinyl as a medium sounds better than CD, or 24/96 sounds better than 16/44.1, without double blind test results to back up those claims. Such results are rare, because the actual advantages are vanishingly small on well designed equipment, and inaudible.